So long, and thanks for all the

Christian Jago (potentilla) died this morning. I’ve been missing her steadily since she got too ill to talk with us any more. Her brisk clarity and bluntness were a regular tonic (as the saying goes). Jean has a post at Talking Philosophy with several quotes. Here’s one that I found over here. (The database has 139, which seems like a kind of wealth.)

Connections between Rod Liddle’s opinions and logically defensible positions are largely random, IMHO. So saying he got this one right is very charitable of you, Ophelia! As TG points out above, he is a kind of auto-contrarian. (Also a churchgoer, if that’s relevant).

And here’s another…which is very apt. I did an uncharacteristic (soppy) post when Hansa, the young elephant, died suddenly last June. I was an elephant keeper at that zoo for a couple of years, and I knew Hansa’s mother and the rest of her herd very well; it was heartbreaking when she died. There are forty very kind comments on that thread – and Christian’s is the first. I ended the post by saying “I heard of a headstone inscription on the radio once: ‘It is a fearful thing to love that which death can touch.’ It is.” Christian’s reply, in its entirety, was:

It is. But ‘better to have loved and lost……” Commiserations.

Indeed, Christian. Much better. Adios, amiga.

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7 Responses to “So long, and thanks for all the”

Much better to have loved and lost, but much more painful too. Those who have not (loved and lost, that is) should not wonder at the despair of those who have. There is little comfort in this life, and no other one.

Clarity, tough mindedness, humor–and all those book suggestions and links! She’s also got a cool website with beautiful nature writing and recipes and her husband’s amazing photography. Oh yeah, and some stuff about having cancer. auspiciousdragon.net

She’s one of the people I’ve met on the internet who has come to seem much more than virtual. She was in full color for me. I hate that we have to say goodbye.

GT, we all have only one chance at life, and the passing of a life well-lived, but too short, is a time for the noble sadness that steels us all to our duty as thinking beings, to be the best we can, for as long as we may; that others may profit from our efforts to the increase of their life and happiness, knowledge and wisdom, as we have profited from those who have gone before and been cut down. We are all just weeds, my friend, scattered where the winds of time have sent us, but weeds have their blooming too.

I’m with Rowan here. I rarely (if ever) spoke directly with her, but her comments were concise, sharp, thought-provoking and witty (and very often seemed to be true). She stood out in the comments (sorry to the rest of you). Very sad news.

Her ‘position statement’ is characteristically interesting and well thought out:

Neither did I sadly to say – as she was way ahead of me in the intellectual stakes. She was forever so thoroughly astute and on top of all her subjects. I really enjoyed reading her posts and would loved to have with her interacted. In response to a wonderful comment of Tea’s I recall her putting up on B&W a really stunning link of some fish. The fish (or survival purposes) clung on to rocks to disguise themselves.

What a loss it is indeed, of a mind that had so much longing and yearning. The wonders of this earthly life in all its forms, never ceased in the least, to amaze potentilla.

It is better to have lived and wondered than to die and never to have wondered at all.